


Witness

by gaydaydreamer



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, it's not a happy fic is what I'm saying, still got some good smut tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-01 13:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14521794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaydaydreamer/pseuds/gaydaydreamer
Summary: She was always there.





	Witness

**Author's Note:**

> hhhhhhh uh happy Mother's Day? I'm sure I'm not the only one who hates how the JtV writers handle Luisa's addiction/trauma/etc. This story is just my attempt to go deeper into the aspects of her that are glossed over, particularly that scene where she almost kills herself??? This is super all over the place but ah well.
> 
> Also I speedran this whole show watching only the Luisa/Rose parts so. loose canon.

//

Rose beckons her backwards.

For a long time, alcohol was the only form of ablution that Luisa could use to purge the echo of her mother from her body. And with constant sobriety comes the constant awareness of how loud the thunder can get inside her. When lightning strikes it is a cacophony of 'I love you's caught in her throat, the discordant melodies of her wanting sobriety, peace, deliverance, but at the same time passion, recklessness and desecration. It is the pull on her heart, the relentless tugging as if a lure has been hooked deep within her. Luisa's desire reverberates through her bones, so loud she cannot think, she cannot choose. So while the tempest rages on, Rose chooses for her with a torrent of furtive kisses and urgent hands, with rumpled sheets and discarded clothing.

But first there is only quiet. Nobody lingering in the underpass below to notice a car pulled over, a woman standing on the side of the road to look out over the city. Nobody on the bridge to talk her out of stepping over the concrete barrier until there is only a foot of overhang separating Luisa from the open air. And when no one else is there to stop her, Luisa has a hard time stopping herself.

There is a certain kind of baptism that requires full submersion. She knows the ugly irony in her jumping, the same way her mother did, but she doesn't deserve any better. Luisa wants nothing more than to wobble on the edge, to look into the yawning abyss of her own destruction and know how it feels to be welcomed by it. In her mind Luisa has always been perched precariously, waiting for the gale force that will send her tumbling forward, and finally her body has joined her there. Why wait until she is unraveled completely, like her mother did? If this is where she is headed regardless she'd rather do it on her own terms- clearheaded, calm and sober. The desire to concede to a fate that has already been laid out for her and finally be at peace eclipses every other desire. That is, until her phone rings.

She fumbles with it at first, not knowing how to answer when she is so far away from herself, or if she should even bother. But whoever it is has chosen to cut through her inner turmoil. Luisa needs their testimony. She needs to not be the only person in the world right now. And Rose's voice on the other end, casual and measured, is the answer to a prayer Luisa didn't even know she'd been sending.

Her litany reads as follows:

There is a certain kind of baptism that needs no water. Rose reaches between her ribs, grip tight around the sluggish mass of her aching heart- too heavy for Ayahuasca to expel completley- and withdraws it, pulpy and carmine. Kneeling between her legs, Rose thrusts into her with two fingers, tongue on her clit. This extraction is just as deliberate, as if each moan and buck of her hips is something valuable to be collected and examined later. Rose is methodical and rigorous. She doesn't look up at Luisa, doesn't slow her onslaught of pleasure even when Luisa is shaking and her white knuckles clench tight around fistfulls of red hair. When she comes, Rose's name is a Hail Mary on Luisa's lips; the fervent repetition obsessive, irresistible, and as soothing as any legitimate prayer. She doesn't even notice she is crying until Rose reaches up to wipe the hot tears off her cheeks. _This is salvation_ , Luisa thinks, as she drags Rose up onto the bed and pins her stepmother beneath her. Afterwards she is red and raw and sore from the careful extraction of every 'I love you'. It doesn't matter if Rose meant any of it.

There is penance too, but that comes later. After Rose talks her off the edge, into bed, only to have her locked away for not meshing well with the other cogs in the machine Sin Rostro built around their lives. And there is forgiveness- in the form of Rose's hands bound to a metal bedframe. What's withheld is just as important as what is given; Rose's orgasm is silent as every part of her tenses and only a single, strained gasp escapes her. She wants Rose to scream for it, to beg for her absolution, but she already knows better. Remorse is not something Rose can offer willingly. It can only be withdrawn from her in the form of harsh, unrelenting ecstasy or stolen like the rhinestone encrusted brooch she will use to aid her escape. Luisa bites the inside of her thigh hard enough to leave a perfect crescent of tooth-shaped bruises, daring Rose to let Emilio see just how imaginary their affair is. Her father will suffocate on wet cement before that happens, but she is getting ahead of herself.

Right now Luisa's world is confined to the rush of black water below, and the disembodied voice of Rose, begging her away from the notion that the only respite from the bottle is death. Luisa has hit rock bottom so many times she is shattered, but Rose can be meticulous in gathering her. It starts here, with this call, with the genuine love which transcends all that is torrid and forbidden between them. Sin Rostro is an expert at dismantling people with her threats, but the only words she offers Luisa are reparative. Eventually, she will have Ayahuasca and her shaman. Eventually she will know the limits of her own devotion, but for now it is boundless. Luisa is already heaving, even when there is nothing left to give, every spasm of her empty cavernous form belongs to Rose. And it is a sacrament that her stepmother accepts without hesitation.

'I love you's are never finite, they are a prosthelization that bears repeating. And for Luisa, it is the implication of future tenderness that coaxes her away from the ledge. Her heart backs away first and the rest of her, reluctantly, follows. She cannot take that step, that final step into blissful quiet where the water will engulf her body in turgent numbness. Not now, when there is someone to bear witness to her- cowering in her own body like a child in a cathedral. Her mother is there at the pulpit. _I live here_ , she says, _I've always lived here._ _You are a guest in God's house. Approach the alter for your communion and know that it will erode you_.

But like everything else, erosion takes time. Until then there is Rose, fucking her in her office as the bottle of vodka looks on, an unopened sentry guarding her resolve. There are the spots of color that flood Luisa's vision as she arches into Rose's mouth and the confession of love that stutters out of her during climax. Rose steadies her trembling hands, reminds her that she can fill the space of herself until there is no room for her mother's sermon. She is not whole, will never be whole, but Rose holds the shards of Luisa close, cutting her fingers on all of Luisa's ugly brokenness. She will lick the blood away, as though it has been consecrated.

**Author's Note:**

> I just went through a terrible heartbreak and I'm channeling all of my feelings into this fictional toxic relationship apparently. cheers.


End file.
